PrC’s, one at a time or for dipping?

[Vegepygmy]

Are PrC’s designed to be dipped into to create a marvelous blend, or were they designed to be a one stop shop till you finish 5 or 10 levels later?

I have no idea what they are designed to be, but I enjoy creating marvelous blends. Any DM who tried to tell me I couldn't "dip" would be banned from running my game.

 

[rgard]

yeah - when you are running a MT - why would you want to do any other PrC? It's all about the spells baby

Well, some of us use Ur-Priest as the Divine spellcasting class.

 

[rgard]

Just as the title says. I am wondering about everyone elses thoughts on the matter. Would keeping players to one PrC until it is completed before they could take another slow down on the munchkinism? Or would it make play less fun? Most of the ‘How pimp is my munchkin’ threads I am seeing out there require a character to dip into PrC’s to get the desired effect before they move on. I am not stopping people from taking as many core classes as they want. Though if they play the ‘core’ classes presented in splat books then they could still find ways to power up their character. But it is harder.

I believe that the dip into PrC’s to gain power is that PrC’s are designed to specialize players. When a character is allowed to specialize into several things you can take what is special from one of the other and add them into the all powerful munch. Am I wrong?

Are PrC’s designed to be dipped into to create a marvelous blend, or were they designed to be a one stop shop till you finish 5 or 10 levels later? Do you allow for your players to dip or not? Do you think PrC’s are the Devils tool to corrupt players into destroying the game and the universe and should be just outright banned? I would appreciate everyones thoughts.

I understand where you are coming from with this. Some one level dips are more equal than others. Urban Savant and Spellsword come to mind (both have 2 good saves and both allow some measure of casting in armor to arcane casters.)

Much of it comes down to what is the player's motivation. Is it to best match the character concept without regard to power gaming/munchkinism or is it just as you describe in order to achieve the uber attack bonus, uber AC or uber whatever?

When you ask the above question, the answer is very subjective and I'm not a big fan of the subjective. To keep things objective, I just go with letting the players play within the rules...if they qualify for the PrC, let them take the one level dip if they want.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[FunkBGR]

Nope - I don't allow cherry-picking. There's no room for it in my game, and there never will be. If a player takes a PrC, it better be for a good reason, and they had better want to take it to the end.

 

[Mistwell]

It's better not to enforce it strictly. And why would PrC be different to any non-core base class. Theres also lots of ways to pick level or two among them. Easiest is fighter, why would any sane player play pure fighter? For skillpoint view theres ranger dip and for rage barbarian and for saves pally all this for ½-1 feats each+extra saves too.

The new fighter feats that have come out in recent books, like PHBII, make staying a fighter more attractive than it used to be. I don't think you can say that no sane player would play a pure fighter anymore.

As for why is it different than base classes, it's because PRCs represent organizations that you join and work for, and a role playing element that is distinct from the general classes.

 

[hong]

As for why is it different than base classes, it's because PRCs represent organizations that you join and work for, and a role playing element that is distinct from the general classes.

Right. Honestly, if PrCs are treated as just more building blocks to use in creating a desired build, you might as well turn them into base classes. Saves a lot of tedious messing around with prereqs.

 

[Kurashu]

There's never been a problem with dipping in my groups. However, I'm considering house ruling that there's a limit of 2 PrCs, unless sanctioned otherwise, to stop it from becoming a problem early.

 

[Quartz]

There are some prestige classes that give too much for a 1 or 2 level dip. Divine Crusader and Ur Priest come to mind because of their rapid spellcasting progression. With Divine Crusader, the issue is why would you stay in the class rather than switch to something like Contemplative as the benefits offered are pretty poor. Fortunately it's easy to fix: extra domains down the line, and an extra feat or two.

 

[werk]

yeah - when you are running a MT - why would you want to do any other PrC? It's all about the spells baby

For level 17.


To the OP,

I find that most PrCs are not heavily front loaded, and when viewed with the prereqs, the first level could be a total wash. A few PrCs are almost exclusively for dabbling, as mentioned, like the exotic weapon master or heir of syberis...the crunchy, several level PrCs.

I've not had problems with it, but most really useful PrCs have prereqs that hinder gaining other PrCs. For instance, the mystic theurge could easily pick up level of archmage, they'd meet the skill prereqs easily, and not mind losing a few spell slots, but spending two feats on spell focus pretty much makes archmage unappealing to most MT, or may help balance the PrC.

 

[Caliban]

I don't think I've ever seen a PC with more than one prestige class. And this is with a group that includes at least 2 hardcore powergamers. The "cherrypick abilities from PrCs" thing doesn't happen in practice.

My Dwarven Fighter4/Monk2/Exotic Weapon Master1/Pious Templar1/Dwarven Defender 10 begs to differ.